Ede, 31st March 2016 – BIT, specialist in colocation, internet connections, managed hosting and outsourcing, released its Transparency Report 2015 today. Due to the developments in the field of privacy, BIT has been communicating the number of requests for personal data of clients and notice-and-takedown-requests that have been received and processed since 2012. In the latest report, responsible disclosure notifications are also included. This concerns notifications of white hat hackers who have found vulnerabilities in the systems. Reports of unknown vulnerabilities are rewarded by BIT. 2015 had two of these reports. The number of phishing notifications increased drastically compared to 2014 (from 50 to 211). This can partly be explained by the fact that BIT has been more proactive in retrieving information from several parties.

Malware and takedown-requestsLike last year, the number of complaints about malware have decreased. In 2013, 29 complaints were filed, in 2014 that number went down to 20 and 2015 counted only 10 complaints. This does not necessarily mean there were less problems with malware. The expectation is that many notifications of malware are incorrectly identified by the notifier as phishing. The number of takedown-requests related to copyright infringement went down drastically for the first time: from 2339 in 2014 to only 607 in 2015. 2016 will confirm whether or not the number of notifications truly went down. Last year, notifications started to be processed in the open source-solution AbuseIO, which means that double notifications are not included in the count to make the numbers more representative.

Wido Potters, Manager Support & Sales at BIT: “Transparency is one of the leading values in our servicing. This means open communication on disruptions, but also allowing a look into the goings-on in the field of privacy and security. We do not hide this information in customer portals, but proactively share it on our homepage and social media channels. Last year we have made a Responsible Disclosure available, where we allow white hat hackers, within certain boundaries, to report possible vulnerabilities in our systems. To keep all data safe, we appreciate all help that complements our own tests and measures. That way we can take action when we need to in order to ensure our client’s privacy.”